My husband and I are in the process of choosing our adoption agency/plan. The one agency we really like specializes in open adoptions. Each case is different, but on average they say you meet up with the birth mother 3 times a year, sometimes less, sometimes more.

After speaking to 6 different agencies, they all tell me different things. I am wondering if this is a good way to go forward? (good as in, is this better for an adopted child)

I have one place telling me it causes resentment and quite often causes a rift with the adoptive parents and the child, and another telling me according to research the child thrives.

I am hoping a few people out there can tell me if their experience has been positive or negative?

I would refuse to adopt a child in a closed adoption situation, I feel that strongly about it.

I'm an adoptee and I grew up with a blank wall for a past.Nationality? Don't know.Parents? No clue.Was mom coerced into giving me up, or was it her free choice? No idea.Did my dad know about me and want to keep me but wasn't told? Who knows? Do I have brothers and sisters? Maybe, probably, can't say.

See where I'm going with this? There is absolutely.no.reason this information should have been kept from me.None.It would not have made me love my parents any less - they are amazing, fabulous people and I am proud to be their daughter.Why on earth, though, didn't anyone tell them that four years after I was born, my mother released another daughter for adoption? Why on earth weren't they given first opportunity to adopt her? Why? No one thought it mattered in the 1960s and 1970s.

i didn't adopt i have legal guardianship but it might as well be the same as an open adoption, my daughter isn't going anywhere. if it is going to work you and the birth mother need to get along well, you need to give her slack after the birth when feelings of loss and stress are going crazy, and help her work through it not just take the child and run. don't promise more than you will deliver. promise pictures every 6 months and visits once a year for sure. you can always offer more for special events, birthdays, school plays, whatever, but don't promise once a month visits if you are not prepared to do it, it isn't fair.

i can tell you it will hurt seeing them together, you are the one footing the bills and being a 24/7 mom and yet this woman will have a bond with the baby on a level you can only wish you had. this isn't their fault and you shouldn't punish them for it. i learned this lesson last year when my daughter got very hurt and ended up in the hospital for a week. i called her bio-mom and dad and they took shifts with me so she would never be alone (i had 2 other kids to tend to too). it SUCKED. i was happy for her to get to see them and spend time with them (she hadn't seen her mom in 6 months by her mom's choice not mine). i dealt with the paperwork, treatment decisions, and legal aspects and she went into mommy bear mode, feeding her with a spoon (i didn't think to do that) taking calls and yelling at the people responsible for the accident, and just everything maturnal. i got my feelings hurt many times when the doctors would walk in and ask "who's mom?" or just assume and start talking to HER about the options when i had all the legal custody and i kept telling them they needed to talk to me. they just saw something in her that drew them to talk to her.

luckily her mom is very nice and we get along well. he corrected them a lot or said we both are but talk to her, etc. she knows i am the best place for her daughter and that i want the best for her so she trusts that i will do right by her. she has often put her daughter in line, telling her that i am the boss and she beter listen to me. she calls me her "other mom" and there is just a mutual respect there. i know i will never be her mother but i'm going to be the best mom i can to her because she needs a stable family, and her mom knows that i am not trying to take her daughter away or turn her against her but that if she wants me to raise her daughter that she needs to let me make my parenting decisions and we are not always going to agree but she has to respect me and my decisions and present a solid front to the kid.

sorry it is so long, i'm just trying to be honest. it is very hard to keep it open because you are extending your family and you have to creat sometimes complicated new relationships, and set up boundries and compromises in order for it to work. you will get jealous and sometimes feel left out but the baby will know when they are older who was there for them and who wasn't. just recently my almost 12 year old started telling me things like "don't tell my mom but i think you are a way better mom" it's nice knowing that she sees that i am the one there for her day in and day out.

Why would someone find the term 'birth mother' as a negative term? This is the legal term as well the most direct way to refer to who you are speaking of.

Getting pregnant and giving birth makes you a 'mother' but the one who raises the child 24/7, cares for them around the clock, loves them, teaches them, is up all night with them when they are sick, etc is a 'mommy'. You dont earn being a mommy simply by getting pregnant, its the love and care you give a child that earns that term....natural or adopted!

You will very quickly discover on YA that this subject has clear lines of division.On one side you have those like Gabbie Poos....who isnt interested in how adoption affects adoptees or natural parents.On the other side you have THOSE OF US WHO HAVE LIVED ADOPTION.Of course Gabbie Poos isnt interested in hearing how we feel, it interferes with her "dreams".....for her, clearly, the needs of the child come a distant second to her own desires.

Keep adoption open, its best for the child and its best for the natural parents for MANY reasons.Ive lived this life as an adoptee for 44 years now.I was adopted at birth during the baby snatch era.My adoptive parents, who are wonderful incidentally and very much real, would have been happy to have an open adoption, actively sought it in fact.They believed I had a right to grow up knowing who I was.Unfortunately the system didnt support them in this.The end result was a child who suffered terribly from abandonment issues, and an adult daughter who still does....and a natural mother who grieved for the child she lost for THIRTY FOUR YEARS.During that 34 years she had, and raised, another 3 children.When we were finally reunited, when I was 34, I discovered the true reason that medical history given at the time of adoption is useless in the extreme....I inherited cervical cancer and cardio myopathy, a disease I lost my mother to just 4 years later.I would be dead if I hadnt met my mother and learned my genetic history.

Open adoption couldnt cause resentment. Knowing who you are, where you came from and why youre where youre at can never be a bad thing.Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of ****.

ETA: Just to clarify, birthmother is NOT a legal term.It reduces the act of a MOTHER to a biological function, which is neither kind or appropriate.Natural mother is an inoffensive term, prefered by most who have surrendered to adoption.The only reason people refuse to use a politer term is because some extremely offensive individuals on here would prefer to continue causing offense.It really beats belief.Why on Earth would anyone WANT to be referred to as BM....which is also the abbreviation for bowel movement? We all learn throughout life to use inoffensive speech, call it political correctness if you must, but for many natural mothers and adoptees, the term birthmother is as offensive as if you called someone who was disabled a retard.......get my point?

Adoption agencies may use birthmother, but then they have a vested interest in reducing the mother of a baby to a biological function.Anyone considering adoption should be willing to take the needs of all involved into account.Including the woman who's baby they want.

It's actually much easier to adopt through foster care. Become licensed foster parents, and adopt that way. Most people using agencies to adopt babies never adopt. For every 1 baby that comes up for adoption, there are something like 40 takers. Not saying not to do it. Just saying you need to really think about this.We are getting licensed to do foster care and will adopt some of the kids that way.

We have friends who did the same, and all have turned out to be great experiences.

Real parents are the ones who raise the child. And where I come from, birthmother just means a mother that gave birth. Nothing more. There are billions of birthmothers that gave birth. Even birthmothers that gave their kids up for adoption call themselves that.When we adopt kids, I will be their mother. I don't care what anyone else thinks. Yes, they will have bio mothers, but I will also be their mother. They will have a mother/child relationship with me. I wish to God people would quit saying that adoptive parents aren't real parents. So what if they aren't blood related? Blood means nothing. LOVE is what makes a family. A real mother doesn't ever put her child in a position to be abused by a man. A real mother doesn't go out and get drunk, leaving the kids to fend for themselves. Many so called real mothers do just that. Yep. The ones that birthed their kids.

I am an aunt. Not blood related to any of my neices or nephews. Shoot. Many of them I acquired before I ever met my husband. I am still their aunt. They call me Auntie L.... These are kids of my friends.

Edit. There are many on here that are extremely rude to would be adoptive/foster parents. Just so you know. Many will say you are not a real mother and all sorts of other garbage. Ignore them. They only get upset at the term birthmother because they are very much against adoption. There are many anti adoption people on here. I don't know/care why.

Just as with any topic out there, you ask for opinions and you will receive opinions.Some will be pro something, some con something, etc.As one poster here points out, there are many of us here that are pro- family reform, pro adoption laws reform, and anti- big business adoption industry selling babies and exploiting vulnerable women.(Obviously, we do know that this is not every adoption, etc ad nauseum on what is obvious.Such as, obviously, I do not want children to grow up in filthy homes with crackhead mom's who sell their children for sex for drugs.). Some of the people who hold a different opinion than I do, turn around and call me rude, anti-adoption etc., and state that my opinion holds no validity as it's different and not her opinion.Wow.The thing is, I'm an adult adoptee.I think my opinion is as valid as anyone's....even though it is pro-adoption reform.I am against not giving adoptees their information - all of their information, as an adult. If you and your husband adopt in one of the 44 states that seal your child's original birth certificate your child may be in the same circumstance as millions of adult adoptees are now.You might say - well, we'll have it be open.Please, do your research.Anything can and does happen.Memories fade, change, and are just wrong.The medical info that the baby's mom provides is what is known at that time.How much medical history could you provide of yourself at 20 and your parents that are 40? The other argument that I've seen come into play here regarding "real" mom and how it gets defined.Every single person will have an opinion - so will every single adoptee - and there is no guarantee of what child will feel what.I never, ever considered my adoptive parents as my real parents. (I was adopted as an infant).

As for your question....Australia has apologized to it's adoptee population for it's barbaric practices of the past.Participating in giving a home to a child that needs one is love.Participating in getting a baby to fulfill a need of the adult is not.Just my opinion.And, in the above situation of the child with the crackhead mom? Try to help the mom, then find the (on average) 100 to 300 relatives to the child to find a relative placement.If we did a good job of finding family to our foster kids, then most of the childless and otherwise seeking children adults would be getting their own relations.

Why not just have your own kids? Also birthmother is a very degrading term, she is the child's mother. No matter what the courts say, you will never be that child's mother. You cannot go against nature. If you choose to purchase a baby and have any decency at all you will permit the mother to have visits with her child. Unless you want to be a typical adopter and renege on it with the law backing you. Open adoptions are not legally enforceable, but Im sure you know that.

Sammy Gabby Poos we can have many friends, many brothers, sisters and cousins etc. But in this life we only get one mother and father. I was raised by my maternal aunt and uncle. My mums half sister, I had a very strong bond with her and she loved me as her own. But she said herself that the woman who brought me into this world was my mother. My mum and I are not close, not even speaking, but no matter what she has done she is still my mother!!! The only mother I will ever have. That is the laws of nature.

I have no issues with foster care adoptions for kids who need homes. At times that will include infants and if thats a foster adoption fine. What I have an issue with are private agencies making a profit off the selling of human beings. It sickens me to think that we outlawed it 150 years ago, but it still goes on under the guise of adoption. I am against prebirth matching, if a woman decides that she does not want to parent after birth and there are no relatives willing to raise the child, then giving the child to the state is fine. But preying on a vulnerable young woman who is down on her luck and steal her baby is just wrong.Even if you adopt out of foster care, you are a caretaker for said children. You may love them yes, but there is a bond that blood has that cannot be broken.